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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27044461">soft as cotton, tender as kiss</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/carverism/pseuds/carverism'>carverism</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Haunting of Hill House (TV 2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, High School, Introspection, Prom, Smoking, Spoiler: They Don't Go To Prom, The Twin Thing</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 04:54:55</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>10,527</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27044461</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/carverism/pseuds/carverism</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Things like prom, they weren’t for people like Luke and Nell. They were for other people. Normal people.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Eleanor "Nell" Crain &amp; Luke Crain</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>47</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>soft as cotton, tender as kiss</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>The title is from Bob Hicok's poem "Elegy with lies," which you can read in full <a href="http://www.versedaily.org/2013/elegywithlies.shtml">here</a>.</p><p>I haven't rewatched <i>Hill House</i> all the way through in a while so I did my best with the wiki but there might be some details that contradict the show. If that's the case, take it as a sliiiiightly canon divergent AU.</p><p>Thank you, as always, to heartstrings for being so supportive and encouraging, and for reading this over!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I’m a strange new kind of inbetween thing aren’t I<br/>
not at home with the dead nor with the living<br/>
<br/>
<b>Sophocles, “Antigone” tr. Anne Carson</b></p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p><b>2002</b><br/>
<br/>
Nell sat quietly in the backseat of Aunt Janet’s station wagon, staring out the window and half-listening to the conversation happening in the front as Aunt Janet and Shirley argued over where to park. It was a bright, crisp Sunday morning, and they’d woken up early for the 30-minute drive to the big mall in the city. Going to the mall had always been something of an event for the family. They rarely made the trek, and only in preparation for special occasions: weddings, graduations, birthdays, and the like. Aunt Janet hated the drive and made no effort to pretend otherwise. Her car was a wretched old thing, lumbering and graceless, and she could do little more than take it in a straight line. Everything else was where it got hairy.</p><p>
It might have been okay, or as okay as it ever got with Aunt Janet behind the wheel, except that evidently they'd chosen what appeared to be the busiest weekend of the whole year to come. The entire parking lot was packed full and teeming with women lugging around kids and pushing strollers, teenagers wandering in packs of five, six, and seven, and old couples shuffling hand-in-hand down the middle of the lane.</p><p>
“Shout if you see a spot,” Aunt Janet said, harried. She’d crept so far forward in her seat that she was nearly pressed against the steering wheel, one hand propping her sunglasses just above her eyes as she squinted out the windshield, cursing under her breath as a mom with a stroller lurched obliviously into the road in front of the car. On the center console, Shirley's fingers were white-knuckled, and Nell could hear the bottom of her shoe hitting the floorboard, rhythmically pumping an imaginary brake. "This lot is packed," Shirley muttered, craning around in her seat. "Try over by Sears. No one’s ever over there.”</p><p>
They finally found a handful of empty spots at the far end of the lot outside the JCPenney, and Aunt Janet, not a great parker on her best day, ended up taking most of two spaces, shoving open her creaking door with a cheerful, “At least it’s shady!” In the passenger seat, Shirley glanced heavenward and whispered, “God give me strength.”</p><p>
Gathering her backpack and her jacket, Nell scrambled awkwardly out of the car, her jeans squeaking against the vinyl seat, and onto the pavement. "Lock your door, please," Aunt Janet said, and then hooked her arm through Nell's, patting her hand. "Now, tell me what you're looking for, honey. Do you have any ideas? I remember when we went shopping for your sister's prom dress, she brought her whole scrapbook along."</p><p>
Nell couldn't help but laugh. It sounded just like Shirley, who became instantly unmoored by anything less substantial than a 10-step plan. Shirley rolled her eyes and said, primly, "Nothing wrong with a little planning. At least with a scrapbook you're not running around in circles like a chicken with your head cut off. Jesus, these shoes are tight." She leaned down to rub at the toe of her stylish, low-heeled booties, purchased new a week before and not quite broken in yet.</p><p>
"Well, you should've worn something more comfortable," Aunt Janet told her with no small exasperation, her thin mouth, painted a berry red, pursing. "You knew we were going to be walking around, Shirley. It's a mall, for God's sake."</p><p>
Brusquely, Shirley waved her off, straightening with a grimace. "It's fine. Where are we going, Nell? Please tell me you have some idea what you want."</p><p>
Shrugging, Nell offered, "A dress?" and Shirley sighed.</p><p>
Inside, the mall wasn't much better than the parking lot had been. Shirley led their little procession, bulling her way through the crowd as Aunt Janet, tugging Nell along by the arm, followed in her wake.</p><p>At the big map, Shirley tapped a finger at a little cluster of likely candidates — Nordstrom, Sears, Forever 21 — and decided, "We'll start with the big department stores. Then, if you don't find anything you like there, we'll start branching out to the smaller stores. And if you don't find anything <i>there</i>, then I really don't know what to tell you, Nellie."</p><p>
"Well, maybe Nell wants to decide where to go first," Aunt Janet suggested diplomatically. Shirley shot her an exasperated look and said, "She just said she has no idea what she wants. If we let Nell make decisions, we'll be here all day."</p><p>
"I think starting with the department stores sounds like a good idea," said Nell quickly, before Aunt Janet could start arguing. Then they'd really be there all day. "Really. Great plan," she added, with a thumb's up. Shirley gave them both a close-lipped smile and then said, crisply, "Great. C'mon, before all the dresses are gone."</p><p>
It seemed like the whole mall had prom on the mind. Nearly every display window they passed featured long, leggy mannequins posed in long, satin sheath, ornamented with tiny, embroidered crystals, with corsages wrapped around their thin wrists. Trailing behind Shirley and Aunt Janet, who continued to bicker quietly, Nell found her attention caught more by her fellow shoppers than by any one store. Passing the Cinnabon, she recognized a couple of girls from her homeroom, a pair of bottle-blondes named Amber and Jordan who were always giggling together about one secret or another in the back of the classroom. Even now, sitting on a small bench in the middle of the corridor with their bags balanced on their knees, heads bent close as they shared a pretzel, they looked like a mirror image of each other, throwing their heads back in a rush of simultaneous laughter. Nell wondered what kind of dresses they were going to wear and knew, somehow they would end up looking just like the girls in <i>Dawson's Creek</i> or in a catalogue, picture-perfect. Walking by, Nell accidentally caught Jordan's eye, and offered a small, hesitant smile. There was no recognition on Jordan's face as she smiled blandly back.</p><p>
"Nell!" That was Shirley a few paces ahead outside the Nordstrom, waiting for her to catch up. "What do you think of these?" she asked as Nell approached. They were standing near a bright window display, where several headless, willowy, cream-colored mannequins stood posed with their arms poised jauntily at their waists, the skirts of their long, flowing dresses lying in artful drapes around their calves, playfully kicked back. One mannequin on the end was wearing a gold-sequined dress, and slowly, Nell walked up to the window, reaching out carefully to ghost a hand down the glass, imagining she touched the line of burnished scales. The cut of the dress seemed almost Victorian, with long, loose sleeves capped by tight cuffs, fastened with two round white buttons each, and its neckline sat high and tight, like a collar. Or, Nell thought, one hand rising unbidden to her own throat, a rope. She caught sight of herself in the reflection and soundlessly shuddered, drawing back.</p><p>
Shirley was watching her, brow furrowed. “Do you like that one?” she asked. “Do you want to grab it and try it on?”</p><p>
“Don’t you think it’s a bit much?” Aunt Janet put in fretfully. “I read in Cosmopolitan that aqua gowns are very popular this year.”</p><p>
Shirley frowned. “Aqua? That’s all it said?”</p><p>
“Well, they also mentioned halter tops, I think,” said Aunt Janet. “And shawls.”</p><p>
“No,” Nell interrupted, offering a wan smile when she earned a pair of startled looks in return, like they’d forgotten she was standing there at all. “No, it’s okay. I was just looking.”</p><p>
"Well, we can go in and take a look, can’t we?” Aunt Janet said. “Why not? We’re already here.”</p><p>
The crowd inside the store was almost worse than the one out in the mall, all of the racks in disarray as girls, most of them with their moms in tow, flitted from display to display in a whirlwind of purses and shopping bags. A fresh, woodsy smell hung in the air, and the lights were very bright overhead, making Nell feel discomfitingly exposed. There was no mistaking the prom section; a whole half of a level had been dedicated to it, with countless rows of racks lined up in a labyrinthine square of perfumed tulle and rhinestones.</p><p>
Divide and conquer, they decided, Aunt Janet marching off one way and Shirley another, with Nell free to wander as aimlessly as she pleased. She went up and down each row of dresses, letting her fingers trail lightly over the lines of fabric on each hanger in turn as she made her way around the edge of the display. Clustered along the wall near the changing rooms sat several small, round tables holding an array of jewelry, from strings of foggy pearls to tiny ruby earrings and everything else in between. Nell was carefully rifling through a delicate gold tray piled with rings when a girl with a shock of white-blonde hair piled messily on the top of her head suddenly emerged from the dressing rooms, the satin hem of her pale, pink dress in one hand and the other held awkwardly behind her back, pinching the dress shut where the zipper caught along the fold of her waist. As Nell watched surreptitiously, hiding behind her curtain of hair, the girl cast a despairing look out across the sales floor, and then turned toward the full-length mirror, rising up on her tiptoes before giving her reflection a dissatisfied look and heaving a sigh. “Fuck,” she muttered under her breath, and dropped her arm, letting the sides of the dress fall away.</p><p>
“That looks really pretty on you,” Nell offered after a hesitant beat, feeling herself flush when the girl’s gaze snapped to her.</p><p>
“Thanks,” she said after a beat, turning back to the mirror, “but it doesn’t fit, and it was the last one on the rack. Now I’m going to have to go to the fucking Bon.” She let out a mournful sound. In the reflection, her mouth pursed with dissatisfaction. “And my mom’s, like, disappeared.” With a sudden huff, she whirled on her heel and marched back to her changing room, letting the door swing shut behind her. Nell, who couldn’t decide whether it would be rude to walk away or more weird to linger, felt trapped by the jewelry display, caught by indecision. But after a moment, the girl reemerged, this time in a pair of low-cut jeans, the dress slung over her elbow. “It’d probably fit you,” she said to Nell, as though they’d been speaking the whole time, “if you like it, I mean.”</p><p>
Without ceremony, she presented the dress to Nell, who took it without really meaning to. The fabric was still warm from the girl’s body in her hands, and smelled faintly of the bright perfume that lingered in the air. “You think so?” she asked, letting the dress unfold and holding it up against herself, gently worrying the thin satin between two fingers and then against her cheek. It felt softer against her skin than it looked.</p><p>
“Sure,” the girl said with a shrug, her attention already somewhere else. “I mean, it doesn’t hurt to try. See you.”</p><p>
“See you,” Nell echoed as she heard a voice from behind her calling, “Nellie, there you are.” She turned to see Aunt Janet striding up with Shirley and a salesgirl, who wore a polite, slightly hunted expression, all of them armed with an array of hangers, on her heels. “Did you find something, honey? That’s very pretty.”</p><p>
“Have you tried it on?” Shirley wanted to know, taking hold of the skirt and inspecting it carefully. “Does it fit?”</p><p>
Nell said, “I haven’t put it on yet.”</p><p>
“I can get a room ready for you,” the salesgirl offered, and Aunt Janet said, “Yes, that would be good, thank you, Jessica. Here, Nell, take these, too.”</p><p>
“Okay,” she said, feeling a little bit overwhelmed by the mountain of clothing piled in her arms. She trailed after Jessica, who threw a quick smile over her shoulder as she led Nell over to a stall, unlocked it, and said, “Holler if you need anything."</p><p>
And then Nell was alone, the changing room door shutting quietly behind her. She turned awkwardly in the tiny space, laying the dress down with a certain amount of careful reverence on the shiny plastic stool wedged in the corner. Someone’s discarded tags crinkled underfoot as Nell pulled off her corduroys and then her blouse, folding and stacking each in turn on top of her shoes, tidily lined up in front of the mirror. She avoided looking at her reflection, ducking her head so her hair hid her face, and tugged the dress past her legs and over her hips, adjusting the string-thin straps on her shoulders and carefully pulling up the zipper as far as she could before she could no longer reach.</p><p>
“Hey,” Jessica said when Nell stepped timidly out again. “It fits.”</p><p>
“Oh, Nellie,” Aunt Janet gasped. Her hands clasped at her chest. “Oh, honey, you look so beautiful. So grown up, doesn’t she, Shirl?”</p><p>
Nell splayed her hands along the low-cut neckline of the dress, feeling her chest rise and fall under her palms. “You think?” she asked, glancing at Shirley, who was looking her slowly up and down, assessing.</p><p>
“You really do,” she confirmed, oddly serious as she reached out to tug up Nell’s half-closed zipper. “Stunning, Nellie. Really.”</p><p>
Staring at herself in the mirror, Nell wasn’t sure what she was supposed to say. Compared to the girls at her school, Nell was short, and skinny, with ridiculous, gangly arms, and an ever-present smattering of acne along the line of her jaw. In their last class photo, she’d stood out horribly, gaunt in the face and pale, a shock of dark, lank hair in a line of bottle-blondes — the last in a stream of weird, wild Crains.</p><p>
“What are we thinking for shoes?” Aunt Janet asked. “White heels, maybe, or a strappy black sandal? I don’t know. What do you think, Shirl?”</p><p>
“I think I’ll just wear my Converse,” Nell said. Shirley looked aghast.</p><p>
“Oh, you can’t wear sneakers to prom, Nellie,” Aunt Janet admonished. “That dress is far too pretty for sneakers.” Turning to Jessica, who leaned against the wall, surreptitiously smacking her gum, she asked, “What’s the shoe selection like here?”</p><p>
“We have lots,” Jessica confirmed. “All kinds. What are you looking for?”</p><p>
“A little sandal, maybe,” Aunt Janet said. “Something she can dance in. This is her prom dress.”</p><p>
“Where do you go to school?” Jessica asked, turning toward Nell politely. “Great Oak,” Nell told her, and Jessica looked a little startled, her thin, dark eyebrows shooting up toward her hairline. “Oh!” she said. “That’s where I go. What year are you?”</p><p>
Nell said, “I’m a junior,” and Jessica's mouth went a little slack with surprise. “Me too,” she said. “Wow, that’s crazy. I can’t believe we’ve never run into each other.” Blandly, Nell smiled. “Me either,” she said.</p><p>
“Would you mind showing me where the shoes are?” Aunt Janet interjected, and Jessica said, "Oh, sure, I'll walk you over." Aunt Janet reached over to give Nell’s hand a quick, warm squeeze, and she said, “Nellie, I’m going to go grab you some different options, okay, and you can see what you like best.”</p><p>
As they walked away, Shirley swayed a little bit closer, joining Nell in front of the mirror. “You really do look gorgeous, Nellie. Do you like it?”</p><p>
Turning back to her reflection, Nell studied herself, smoothing the wrinkles collecting around her hips. “I think Momma would've liked this one,” she said, pivoting in place and watching the gauzy material float loosely around the pale lines of her bare calves. With her hair, which fell in a lank tangle nearly to her waist, framing her face, she could almost pass for Olivia in the mirror.</p><p>
It was strange, really. Nell barely remembered her mother; she’d been six when Olivia had died, and when she closed her eyes and tried to recall her face, what comes to mind was more a memory of a memory. Sometimes she thought that what memories she did have were simply recollections of other people’s stories. And each year, more and more slipped away, like tiny grains of sand through her fumbling, grasping fingers. Most of their family pictures had been lost to the house, or to time, but the few that had survived featured a younger Olivia, not much older than Nell was now. That girl, beaming out with her unlined face, all joy and hope and fearlessness, seemed like a stranger in a way, like she’d never really grow up into the woman that Nell had known at all.</p><p>
Carefully, Nell lifted her chin, tilting her head this way and that, looking for Olivia in the cut of her jaw, the fullness of her cheeks, the roundness in the corners of her eyes. People told her all the time how much she was like her mother: Aunt Janet, who cried, sometimes, when she said it, reaching out to cup Nell’s face and stroke her cheek; and Daddy, and even Shirley, even though Shirley always looked troubled to be saying so.</p><p>
Shirley frowned now, watching Nell in the mirror with a furrowed brow. “But do you like it, Nell?” she stressed.</p><p>
“I do,” said Nell. She smiled at her reflection, experimentally drawing her lips back from her teeth, and trying to soften her eyes. For a moment, just the barest moment, she looked almost normal, like a girl emerging from the glossy pages of one of Aunt Janet’s magazines. She imagined herself descending from a staircase, a grand staircase, one hand holding up the folds of her skirt, the other draped with casual elegance on the bannister, ducking her head in bashful pleasure as her family turned to her, all simultaneously. Daddy would bring up his camera, and Momma would come to her, and take her by her hands, and tell her — whatever it was that mothers told their daughters, in moments like these. She would say, in that melodic voice, the one that Nell had created for her, over a lifetime of little imaginings, just like this one, “Sweetheart, you look so beautiful.” And she would squeeze Nell’s fingers in hers.</p><p>
Then Nell blinked, and reality set in. Under the buzzing fluorescent light, she seemed an intangible thing. Incorporeal. Almost like she wasn’t really there at all.</p><p>
She said, “I really, really do.”</p><p><br/>
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>//</p>
</div><br/><p>“She cried the whole time we bought the dress,” Nell said, tucking her hands into the crooks of her knees against the sudden chill in the air.</p><p>
On the way back to the house, she’d sat in the back of the station wagon with her new dress crumpled in its bag at her feet, staring out the window and politely pretending she couldn’t hear Aunt Janet sniffling in the driver’s seat, a crumpled tissue folded in her palm as she guided the steering wheel. It hadn’t been until they were nearly home that Shirley, practically vibrating in the passenger seat from the effort of keeping quiet, finally snapped, “It’s a dress, Aunt Janet.” Then, sounding like the words had been coming through gritted teeth, she’d added, more gently, “Let’s save the waterworks for when she actually gets dressed up to go."</p><p>
Luke laughed as Nell recounted the story, the kind of rare, full-bodied laugh that only Nell could pry out of him, tipping his head back and exhaling a cloud of smoke.</p><p>
“What’d Janet say?” he asked, still grinning up at the darkening sky.</p><p>
Nell grinned too, letting her knee bang against his. “Oh, you know. Just that her little babies are growing up too fast. Then there was more crying, and Shirley threatened to get out and walk.”</p><p>
They sat side-by-side on a picnic table at the same park to which they’d been escaping since they’d been rangy middle schoolers bridling at Aunt Janet’s frenetic, anxious attention. Nell couldn’t remember when, exactly, the cigarettes had come into the picture, just that it had been Luke, naturally, who’d introduced them, producing a slightly crushed, half-empty pack of Camels from his back pocket one day after school. He’d worn that same Luke smile, too, slightly frantic and all devil-may-care, leaning in really close to whisper, “Look what I’ve got.” There had never been any real confirmation, but Nell knew those cigarettes were stolen, as certainly as she knew that the sun rose in the east. Nowadays, Luke always bought them from the convenience store down the street from their school, where the apathetic clerk had a reputation for forgetting to check IDs, and kept the packs hidden in the bottom of his schoolbag in an old pencil case. Nell took a drag here or there, but she didn’t like it much, or at least not as much as Luke, who smoked nearly any chance he got.</p><p>
“I bet you’ll look a lot better than I’m going to,” Luke said, scruffing at the top of his head until his hair stuck up in every direction like a porcupine. “Steve made me promise three times not to ruin his suit. Four times, maybe." He huffed out a laugh. "It’s not even that nice of a suit. I told him I could just get a rental but,” he trailed off, one bony shoulder rising in a shrug. “I guess it’s better to take a chance on me fucking up Steve’s shit than fucking up something we’ll have to pay off.”</p><p>
Privately, Nell understood where Steve was coming from, though the admission, even unvoiced, felt like a betrayal. Luke's knack for destruction was unerring, and undeniable; almost everything he owned was marked by holes or stains. “You look homeless,” Aunt Janet would say, despairingly. “People will think I’m not taking care of you kids.” But Luke’d never been overly concerned. “It adds character,” he’d say, and smile.</p><p>
“How’s it fit?” Nell asked. At sixteen, Luke was already taller than Steve and still growing, a truth that still bothered Steve, and Nell sometimes, too, when she let herself think about the fact that Luke had been outgrowing her for as long as she could remember.</p><p>
Somehow, the reality that they no longer matched still managed to surprise her from time to time. She’d turn around and still expect to see Luke at eye-level, with his boy-tousled sweep of hair and those thick wire-frames overwhelming his small, round face, instead of the man standing there towering over her in his place. The strangest thing was that the change seemed, to her, to have happened overnight. Not only was he taller than her, but he was bigger and older in almost every other way, too. A lot of the time, and in a lot of ways, Nell still felt like a baby. She’d never touched any alcohol, except for the little sips of wine Aunt Janet would give her occasionally at dinner, if it were a special occasion, and she’d definitely never touched anything more hardcore than Ibuprofen and the occasional drag off one of Luke’s cigarettes. But Luke, it seemed, was already something of an authority about all of it, and Nell wasn’t quite sure when he’d gone and gotten all of this experience, because when had they ever been apart? Sometimes she was afraid he’d get so far ahead of her that she’d never be able to catch up.</p><p>
Luke smiled, scrubbing tiredly at one eye with the back of his hand. “The pants are a little short in the ankles,” he admitted, “but Steve thinks since it’s kind of loose in the waist, I can just let them sag a little and no one will notice. I don’t know. I feel like it’s going to make me look like Eminem or something.”</p><p>
“Well,” Nell said, imagining what Shirley would think about that bit of wisdom from Steve, “at least it’ll be a statement.”</p><p>
“It’s such a shitty suit, too. Like it’s supposed to be black but it’s not, because it’s so thin, it’s like this coppery-red color. And it itches. I don’t know. Who cares,” Luke said, a bit of a sneer creeping into his tone. He added, abruptly, “People stare at us anyway. What we wear isn’t going to make a difference.”</p><p>
Nell picked idly at a thread dangling from the hem of her shorts, wrapping it around the meat of her thumb and tugging. She watched her skin go purple and then white before the thread finally came free with a sudden snap. “I know,” she offered timidly, flicking the string into the grass. “But it’s nice to pretend sometimes. Don’t you think?”</p><p>
Luke just shrugged, smoke pouring out of his nose and twisting, ghost-like, through the air before it faded into nothing against the dusky sky. There was a long, wordless moment as Nell stared at Luke and Luke stared out across the park, the rusted equipment colorless under the pale moonlight. She could just barely hear the sound of music off in the distance, the wail of a guitar and the thud of heavy bass, and the rev of an engine speeding through the neighborhood. In the halo of fuzzy yellow light from an overhead street light, a percussive chorus of bugs bounced off the bulb.</p><p>
Now that the sun had set, it was cold enough that Nell wished she’d remembered her sweatshirt. She pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around her shins, wishing that Luke would say something, but he’d been quiet so long that she was about to tell him to forget it. That it didn’t matter. It was on the tip of her tongue, her anxiety burbling over, when Luke finally dropped the smoldering cigarette butt to the bench and used the rubber toe of his shoe to methodically grind it down to ash. “It’s not easy for me,” he said, with a frown directed down at his feet. To pretend, he didn’t need to add. Nell knew. It wasn’t easy for her, either. She could feel it in him, sometimes: that yearning for normalcy; the desire to be someone else. Nell felt it in herself every single day.</p><p>
“Don’t worry,” she said quietly, and looped her arm through his, leaning over to rest her temple against the firm, familiar line of his shoulder. No matter how much they grew up, she thought, his body had always felt just the same against hers, a solid weight, grounding in that same way it had been since they were small, clinging to each other in the dark. It was a reminder that, as alone as she sometimes felt, she never really was. Not really. Not with Luke always, always in her head.</p><p>
Under her cheek, she could feel the motions of his body as he sucked in a steadying breath, and she knew just what he was going to say before he even said it, something false but sweet in his voice as he told her, “It’ll be fun, Nellie. It’s going to be really great." It was sort of funny, Nell thought; the way that Luke was always lying to her, like she wouldn’t be able to tell. But it was a kindness — one of the kindnesses he knew how to give. "Anyway, we always have fun," he added, almost like he was trying to convince himself. "Right?"</p><p>
Nell smiled. "Shirley thinks it's weird we're going together," she said. Not that Shirley'd said as much, but Nell could tell. She could always tell, with Shirley, whose face had never been able to hide a thing. Nell found her almost as easy to read as she did Luke.</p><p>
Luke scoffed. "Shirley thinks literally everything about us is weird," he pointed out, reaching for his half-empty pack of cigarettes. "I'm not worried about what Shirley thinks."</p><p>
That was the thing about Shirley, though, Nell thought. Shirley had spent a lot of time and energy trying her very hardest to seem just like any other girl. She had no patience for the oddities of her siblings because if she'd done it, why couldn't they? And Nell had no idea how to explain it in a way that would make sense. Shirley didn't like for Nell to mention the twin thing, didn't believe it was anything more than Nell and Luke's lingering childhood over-dependence on each other. "You have no idea," Shirley would say slowly, crisply, "how tired I get of hearing about that." And she'd tell them, "Maybe if either of you ever tried to make any other friends," like the only thing putting people off was the fact that they were always together. It was different, Nell sometimes wanted to say. It was different but not in the way Shirley thought it was different, and there was no way Nell would ever be able to explain it to her. Luke and Nell had been knotted up in each other for their whole lives. Their whole, entire lives, locked like the links in a chain. All they'd ever had was each other. Sometimes, on a good day, Nell could convince herself that it was enough.</p><p>
"Me neither," she said. And she knew Luke could tell she was lying, but Luke, because he was Luke, didn't say a thing.</p><p><br/>
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>//</p>
</div><br/><p>“I think we should curl your hair,” Shirley said, all scientific consideration, using her hands to turn Nell’s head this way and that as she studied her reflection in the small mirror. “At least we can brush it,” she added, exasperated, when Nell wrinkled her nose a little.</p><p>“Maybe you should ask her what she wants,” Theo offered, her voice tinny and full of static over speaker phone. The house phone was propped up on the vanity next to Nell’s hairbrush and the pile of supplies Shirley had brought along for the makeover. Theo already sounded distracted, mumbling something to someone in the background before she came back again, suddenly clearer. “Nell, what do you want?”</p><p>Shirley met Nell’s eyes in the reflection and made a face. “I’ve asked, Theo, and she said that she doesn’t know. Right, Nell?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Nell agreed, tucking a hank of loose hair behind her ear. “I’m not really sure. I’m open to suggestions.”</p><p>“I say curls. Something to give you some volume, at least,” Shirley said, decisive, letting her hands fall to clasp Nell’s shoulders.</p><p>“Maybe wavy,” offered Theo. In the background, something shattered, and someone, not Theo, started to laugh. “Or a headband or something. Look, I’ve got to go, but email me pictures, all right? Have fun, Nellie. Tell Luke I said so, too.” She hung up without waiting for them to say goodbye, and Shirley sighed, reaching over to end the call.</p><p>“Well, thanks for the help, Theodora,” she muttered before giving Nell a smile. “Whatever. We’ll try some stuff and see what works, okay?”</p><p>The plan, as Shirley had helpfully laid out, was to tackle Nell’s hair first and then move on to the makeup before they got her into the dress. And, in theory, this would all happen in the next hour, before they packed Luke and Nell into the car and waved them off to the dance, where, Shirley was certain, as she’d said many times, that they would have the best time ever.</p><p>“Luke said it’s a space theme, right?” Shirley asked, wrangling the first roller into Nell’s hair.</p><p>“‘A Night Among the Stars,’” Nell recited dutifully, picking at her cuticles. “They hung all of these paper stars through the whole gym and got a disco ball, I think. I heard some girls talking about it in homeroom.”</p><p>“Oh, wow,” Shirley said, “that sounds really pretty! Better than what I got when I went. We had desert nights or something like that, and they basically just dumped a bunch of pieces of balled-up beige paper in all the corners of the room and called it a day. I barely even remember the dance. But yours sounds like it’s going to be amazing,” she hastened to add, giving Nell’s arms an encouraging squeeze.</p><p>“I guess,” said Nell as Shirley ran the brush through another hank of hair before she started rolling the foam curler with exacting precision. The next few curlers followed as they sat in silence, and Nell couldn’t help but wince as Shirley finally said, sounding like she was trying to be very careful about it, “Are you planning on meeting up with any of your friends?”</p><p>Nell couldn’t help but scoff a little, ducking her head. “What friends?” she said wryly.</p><p>“Well,” Shirley started, turning to busy herself with the makeup spread out on the vanity, “you guys have friends, don’t you? Don’t you sit with people in class and things?”</p><p>“Yeah,” said Nell, “but they’re not friends, really. They’re just people I talk to in class, sometimes. We don’t hang out outside of school or anything.”</p><p>Not that Nell hadn’t tried more than a few times to make friends, actual friends. One week into the fall semester, she’d asked Elaine Simmons, who sat next to her in biology, if she wanted to go see the new Reese Witherspoon movie, and Elaine had stuttered a little, looking sort of caught and wide-eyed before telling Nell, with what had seemed like real regret, that her mother probably wouldn’t like that, but thanks anyway.</p><p>And that would have been fine, except then that next Monday, Nell had walked into class only to discover that Elaine had switched seats with one of the boys. She’d kept her gaze studiously forward, caught up in a haltingly chipper conversation with Susan Something-or-other as Nell had quietly sat down and stared hard at her notes while Susan’d snuck half-smiling, beady-eyed little glances at her, waiting for Nell to react.</p><p>“But you’ll probably see them there, right? At the dance?” Shirley pressed, opening one of Nell’s lipstick tubes and making a face before replacing the cap and tossing it back into the drawer.</p><p>Nell said, “I think we’ll probably see a lot of people at the dance. I don’t know. We haven’t talked about it.” She couldn’t really see why it mattered.</p><p>But, of course, it mattered to Shirley, who hedged, "I just think, maybe — well, I don’t know. Maybe it might be more fun for you and Luke if you hang out with some of your friends at the dance.” There was a long, uncomfortable moment as Shirley rifled through the lipsticks and Nell stared down at her hands, scratching at the jagged edge of a cuticle with the bitten-off corner of her thumbnail. Finally, Shirley cleared her throat and said, brightly, “Here, what do you think about this color?”</p><p>“It’s kind of mauve,” Nell said, taking the lipstick anyway. She smudged a little on the inside of her wrist, holding it up near her mouth to study it in the mirror. “Maybe something lighter? I feel like this is kind of — witchy.”</p><p>“It makes you look mature, I think,” Shirley argued. “It’s nice.”</p><p>“I don’t want to look mature,” Nell told her. “I want to look pretty.”</p><p>Shirley laughed. “You’re going to look pretty no matter what color lipstick you wear. Except blue or something. Even then, though. You’re too gorgeous, you know. I can’t believe I have to tell people I’m jealous of my sixteen-year-old sister. It’s sick.” Nell couldn't help but roll her eyes, and Shirley exclaimed, “I’m telling the truth! Jeez, can I give a girl a compliment? Here, turn a little and tilt your head back. I think this foundation might be a little bit light but we can always fix that with some bronzer.” Nell obeyed, letting her lids fall shut as Shirley daubed the little sponge all over her face. The smooth, repetitive motion felt almost hypnotizing, and Nell found herself fighting not to be lulled straight into sleep, blinking her eyes dazedly open to look at the concentration in the set of Shirley’s mouth.</p><p>“This doesn’t look bad,” Shirley finally said, leaning back to take Nell in from a distance. “Look in the mirror, see what you think.”</p><p>“It’s not done yet,” Nell said, but took a look anyway, leaning in close to her reflection. With the layer of foundation, she looked as pale as paper, as washed out and dimensionless as a little clay girl. The only color in her face was underneath her eyes, where the violet-blue of her bags stood out in stark relief against the ivory veneer of her skin. She looked, Nell thought, like a ghost. “It’s okay,” she said, turning back toward Shirley. </p><p>“Good,” Shirley said, satisfied. Next came a dusting of powder and then the bronzer, which Shirley applied liberally with a huge, fluffy brush, all over her forehead near her hairline, down the sides of her face, and along the line of her throat. Bring her back to life, Nell thought to herself, and couldn’t help but laugh, just a little. “What now?” Shirley asked, sounding cross.</p><p>“Just tickles a little,” Nell said, and was told to pick out an eyeshadow, please. She selected a shimmery reddish-brown from Shirley’s pile and then, at Shirley’s behest, a golden, glittery color before she was ordered to lean back again, closing her eyes as Shirley leaned in close, her breath warm and even against Nell’s cheek.</p><p>Fifteen minutes later, Nell was blinking at herself in the mirror, staring like she was seeing herself for the first time. With mascara and eyeliner, evenly applied with Shirley’s gentle, modest touch, Nell’s eyes seemed ten times larger, owlish in the mirror. And her hair, falling in gentle, glossy waves past her shoulders, looked almost lifted off of a runway.</p><p>“You look stunning, Nellie,” Shirley said, soft. She sounded like she might be trying not to tear up. “Absolutely stunning.”</p><p>“I look —” Nell started, cutting herself off. She skimmed the pads of her fingers over the rouged circles of her cheeks, pressing carefully at her berry-tinted lips. Nell didn’t know how she looked. “Different,” she finished finally. That, at least, was true. “Really different.”</p><p>Shirley looked worried, suddenly. “Is it okay?” she asked. “You can say if it’s not. I want it to be perfect for you.”</p><p>“No, it is perfect,” Nell said, giving herself an experimental smile in the mirror. It really was perfect, she thought; she didn't look like herself a bit.</p><p><br/>
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>//</p>
</div><br/><p>
“Hey,” Steve called out as Aunt Janet situated Luke and Nell near the staircase to take pictures with her little disposable camera, Steve and Shirley making their observations from the nearby couch. “Smile, Luke, would you?”</p><p>
“I am,” said Luke, baring his teeth. At his side, Nell held herself stiffly, her smile wobbling with strain. The day had been unseasonably warm for February, and their whole living room felt humid, the breeze wafting in from the open windows nearly non-existent. Nell could feel sweat prickling at her hairline and on her shoulder, Luke’s hand felt clammy.</p><p>
The camera shutter clicked. “Oh, that’s a beautiful one,” Aunt Janet exclaimed. “Now, both of you, look right at me, okay.”</p><p>
“God,” Steve murmured into the lip of his beer, seemingly half to himself, “I still cannot believe that you’re taller than me. It’s just unfair, you know? Little brothers are supposed to be shorter. Here, come over here and let me fix your tie.” Luke rolled his eyes a little but obligingly wandered over, arms loose at his side as Steve straightened his tie and picked little bits of lint off of his shoulders. “You look pretty good, though,” Steve said before abruptly taking Luke by the arms, centering him as he studied him carefully. Then, smiling, he knocked Luke gently on the chin with his knuckles and teased, “Handsome kid.”</p><p>
Luke’s eyes found Nell’s over Steve’s shoulder, something wry and deadpan in his expression. Carefully, Nell bit back a smirk. Steve was always doing stuff like that, trying to act like their dad, even though most of the time that type of thing fit on him like a strange, ill-fitted costume. Shirley was the same, in a way, mothering the rest of them with an exasperated kind of intensity. Overcompensation, Theo would call it, with that crisp, derisive certainty that had only festered since she’d left for college.</p><p>
“You’ll be breaking hearts all over that damn dance,” Steve continued. Then, glancing over his shoulder with a smile, he added, “You too, Nellie. You look great, kiddo.”</p><p>
“Thanks, Steve,” Nell said, trying for a smile, despite the nerves roiling in her stomach. All dolled up in her dress and her makeup and the hair Shirley had spent so long agonizing over, Nell felt a little bit afraid to even move, lest she mess something up, so she ended up just staying where she was, hesitant to even lean against the wall.</p><p>
“You look like you’re going to hurl,” Luke whispered to her as he walked past, tugging with a grimace at the too-small jacket. “I just might,” Nell whispered back.</p><p>
“I can’t wait to show Theo,” Aunt Janet was saying, smiling down at the camera’s little display screen. “God, you two look so grown-up. I can’t even believe it.”</p><p>
“They’ll be paying taxes in no time,” Steve announced with a cheerful toast of his Sam Adams. “It’s all downhill from here, guys, so really enjoy yourselves tonight, okay?”</p><p>
“Would you stop?” Shirley admonished irritably. Then, with a sly little smirk tugging at her mouth, she added, “Their lives aren’t over until at least college.”</p><p>
“Yeah, you guys are hilarious,” Luke deadpanned. “You really couldn’t come up with any other plans for a Friday night? You had to hang around here while we get ready to go to a high school dance? Don’t people in college have their own parties? Or are you guys just not invited to those?”</p><p>
“Hey, Shirley had to help me with my hair and stuff,” Nell protested, shooting her a small smile. “I couldn’t have done it without her.”</p><p>
“Thank you, Nellie,” Shirley returned as Steve said, unmoved, “Shit, anything’s better than studying. Besides, what could possibly bring me more joy than watching you suffer through a thousand pictures for Annie Leibowitz over there,” he added, nodding his head at Aunt Janet, her attention still on the camera even as she called out, “Don’t swear, Steven.” Steve winked at Nell and said, sing-song, “Sorry, Janet.” With Aunt Janet’s back still turned, Luke risked a grab for Steve’s beer, throwing back a quick gulp before Steve could grab it back with a warning, “Hey.”</p><p>
“Remember you’re driving,” Shirley told him in a low tone. “Okay?”</p><p>
“Okay, Mom,” Luke hissed back. “It was one sip.” Then, in his normal tone, “Maybe we should take off before she figures out how to get that thing started again,” he suggested, with a weary look over at Aunt Janet. “At this rate, the thing's going to be over by the time we get there.”</p><p>
In another rare gesture of generosity, Steve had decided to spare them the indignity of the station wagon and let them borrow his car for the night, only after extracting a few hundred promises from Nell that she wouldn’t let Luke, God forbid, wreck the damn thing. Even still, Steve followed Luke all the way to the car door, holding the keys just out of reach as he said, “I’m serious, man. Not even a scratch. And I will know, so don’t think you can get one over on me. I’m trusting you.”</p><p>
“Steve,” said Luke, with exaggerated patience, “I won’t even go over the speed limit, okay? Hands at 10-and-2. I swear.” He held out a hand and, heaving a sigh, Steve slapped the keys into his palm. “I’m trusting you,” he repeated, holding Luke’s gaze.</p><p>
“Thanks, Stevie,” Nell said, lingering by the passenger door. She leaned into him as he pulled her into a quick hug, brushing a quick, unfamiliar kiss to her hair.</p><p>
“Hey, no worries,” he said, opening the door for her and giving her a hand inside. “I trust you can keep that one in line.”</p><p>
“I try,” Nell told him with a smile. In the driver’s seat, Luke revved the engine, and laughed when Steve shot him an exasperated middle-fingered salute through the window. “Yeah, yeah,” Steve said. “Laugh it up, chuckles. And hey, have fun, Nellie, okay? Both of you. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”</p><p>
Under Steve’s watchful eye, Luke pulled carefully out into the street, letting the car roll with exaggerated slowness up to the stop sign and stopping with a heavy press of the brake before he turned off of their little street and onto the main thoroughfare. Then, punctuated by a sudden burst of speed and the roar of the engine, he muttered, “This dance has turned everyone into a fucking psycho." Nell couldn’t help but watch the speedometer out of the corner of her eye as it crawled up five, six miles-per-hour over the limit. “Hey, you want any music?” Luke asked, glancing over at her as he jabbed at the stereo.
</p><p>
“Not this,” said Nell as Steve’s Red Hot Chili Peppers’ CD started to wail, “Dog town, blood bath, rib cage, soft tail —” She turned it to the next CD, abruptly cutting the song off and throwing them into ringing silence.</p><p>
Luke laughed. “I don’t know if you’re going to find any No Doubt,” he said as they waited for the disk to change over.</p><p>
“I have no idea what Steve even listens to,” Nell realized aloud. “That’s kind of sad.” How many years had she lived in the same house as Steve, and she didn’t even know the kind of music he liked? Besides, she supposed, the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Next to her, Luke shrugged. “I wouldn’t feel bad about it,” he said. “I don’t think he knows what you listen to, either.”</p><p>
Nell smiled. “I just mean — I don’t know. It’s just weird that he’s my brother but then, in a lot of ways, he feels —” She didn’t know what she meant. “Not like a stranger. But like I don’t know him the way I should know him.”</p><p>
“Like me?” Luke offered. It was on the tip of her tongue to say no, never; she could never know anyone the way she knew Luke, inside and out, and every dark place in between. But then Luke continued, “Not that I’m some kind of Steve expert. But I think he thinks since we’re the two boys, we’re supposed to be close or something.”</p><p>
“I think we’re all supposed to be close,” said Nell. “In an ideal world.”</p><p>
“An ideal world,” Luke parroted. Then he laughed. “Right. Not this one.”</p><p>
“No,” Nell said quietly, gaze fixed out the passenger-side window. “Not this one.”</p><p>
Aunt Janet’s house wasn’t far from the school, and they were pulling into the lot by the gym before long, Luke parking the car in one of the last spots. It seemed like half the school was still wandering around the parking lot, shrieking as they recognized each other in the dark, running with the clatter of heels into each other’s arms. The gym doors were flung open, decorated with huge, navy blue balloons and streamers. Inside, Nell could see the scattered stars hanging from the ceiling, and the speckled glow of the disco ball. It looked beautiful, she thought. Like everything she’d dreamed.</p><p>
Beside her, Luke’s gaze was expectant. “You ready?” he asked.</p><p>
Nell turned to look at him, her heart hammering in her chest. “I don’t have any tickets,” she said, and then couldn’t help but burst into nervous giggles at the nonplussed look on Luke’s face. There was a long pause and then he seemed to remember himself, blinking. “Uh,” he said slowly. “Okay. I’m sorry. I thought —”</p><p>
“I lied,” she interjected.</p><p>
“Okay,” repeated Luke, squinting out the windshield at the throngs of kids running around the parking lot. “Why?”</p><p>
Nell didn’t know what to say. She barely knew herself. The truth was, she’d tried to buy tickets. She’d walked up to the line outside the cafeteria three days in a row, money fisted in her trembling hand, and then each time, she’d walked straight by, because who had she been trying to fool, anyway? Who was she trying to be? Things like prom, they weren’t for people like Nell. They were for other people. Normal people.</p><p>
“I don’t know,” she said, practically in a whisper. “Aunt Janet, Shirl, everyone was just so excited, and I, I don’t know — I guess I didn’t want to let them down.”</p><p>
“But I thought you wanted to go,” Luke said. “Didn’t you want to go?”</p><p>
“Yes,” Nell said miserably, feeling the hot shame rising in her cheeks.</p><p>
They sat quietly for another long moment. The sound of bass trickled out of the gym and through the air. Nell felt like she was about to cry. One of the secret terrors of her life was that one day, probably soon, Luke would wake up and realize that Nell was just weighing him down. That the two of them, they weren’t the same — that Nell was strange, and wrong.</p><p>
“Do you want me to try and sneak us in?” he offered into the silence. He seemed sincere about it, too, so sincere that Nell couldn’t help but laugh around the sudden tears rising in her throat. “No, no, it’s okay,” she said, wiping roughly at her cheek, probably smearing all of Shirley’s hard work all over her face. “I was just thinking we could maybe sit here for a little bit and then just go home. Sorry,” she added, quickly. “I should’ve told you about this. I don’t know why I didn’t. That was stupid of me.”</p><p>
Luke sighed. “I mean,” he said. “yeah. Kind of.”</p><p>
“Sorry,” repeated Nell, another tear rolling down her cheek.</p><p>
“No, just,” Luke started, and then laughed, a little bit incredulous. “I could’ve bought the tickets for us, if you wanted.”</p><p>
“I’m really sorry,” she said a third time. “We don’t have to wait long. When we go home, I’ll tell them I didn’t feel good.”</p><p>
The steady stream of kids tottering along in their too-tall heels or their stupid, cheap suits disappearing into the gym had slowed to a trickle. They were two of the last people in the parking lot. Then, abruptly, Luke turned the car back on and threw it into reverse, backing out of his spot with a squeal of tires. “You know,” he told her, and grinned, looking, for a moment, just like that small, gap-toothed version of himself. “I think that we can do better than that.”</p><p>
With that, he tore back out of the parking lot, the right tires clipping the curb as he took the turn too fast and bouncing them both in their seats. It startled an exhilarated laugh out of Nell, who couldn’t help but gape over at him as he drove, one hand on the steering wheel, the other dangling out of his open window. “Turn up the music!” he shouted over the roar of the wind, and Nell did, rolling down her own window and leaning out into the crisp, cool air as, on the radio, Incubus began to wail.</p><p><br/>
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>//</p>
</div><br/><p>
“Here,” said Luke as he tossed the plastic bag into Nell’s lap, the car creaking as he got back in, “got you something.”</p><p>
They’d driven almost a half an hour, right out of town and into the endless night. Past the city limits, the highway turned into a long, winding stretch without street lights, just farmhouses dotting the dark countryside, few and far between. After a while, the drive had been exhilarating, just Nell and Luke, the dim glow of their headlights in front of them, and the constant noise of the radio. To Nell, it had seemed like they might simply keep driving and never stop, straight on until morning. She hadn’t even minded the thought of it, really, but before long, Luke had pulled off the highway and into a sleepy little gas station, announcing cheerfully that they needed snacks.</p><p>
“It better not be beer,” she said now, tugging the handles aside and unearthing a big bag of Fritos. “One of us needs to be able to drive home.” But it wasn’t beer; instead, under the chips, she found a pair of 20-ounce bottles of Hawaiian Fruit Punch, two sleeves of Oreos, a 100 Grand bar, and, strangely enough, a little pink, fake carnation. “I don’t know what they normally have at proms,” Luke said, watching her pick through their plunder from the driver’s seat, “but I figured this is probably close.”</p><p>
Running her fingers over the soft, polyester fabric of the flower petals, Nell asked, “And this?” She gave the plastic stem a twirl.</p><p>
“Come on.” He laughed and made a face like it should’ve been obvious. “What prom doesn’t have flowers?”</p><p>
Nell kept her gaze on the flower in her hands, blinking against another rush of tears behind her eyes. It was just the kind of disarming sweetness, she thought, the unexpected thoughtfulness that Luke was capable of and that no one really seemed to see, except for her. There was a click of a lighter, and she glanced up to see him cupping his hand around the flame, a cigarette in his mouth. In the center console, a brand new pack of Camels sat, freshly opened.</p><p>
“Steve’s going to smell that, you know?” she told him, and Luke made a wry face, inclining his head toward the open window. “If the car’s not at least a little fucked up when I bring it back, he’s going to think something's wrong with me,” he said, exhaling, a little smirk lingering at the corner of his mouth.</p><p>
Nell smiled, and looked back down at the flower, which matched her dress almost perfectly. She had to resist the urge to bring it up and take a sniff. “You don’t always have to live down to his expectations,” she said, keeping her voice light.</p><p>
Turning the key, Luke shrugged as the car rumbled to a start. “But it's so fun," he said with a grin, and she shook her head. "C'mon, Nellie. You’ve got to let me have some vices.”</p><p>
But that was just it, Nell thought. She was always going to let Luke have what he wanted. All he had to do was ask, and she’d open up, as easy as anything. In her experience, that was what being a twin was. It was feeling the want in someone. The yearning and the need, and feeling it, too; feeling everything until she didn’t know whether it was Luke’s or it was hers, or if that even mattered at all.</p><p>
She tucked the flower into the cupholder and then sucked in a deep breath. “All right,” she said as they pulled back onto the road, “so where are we going, anyway?”</p><p>
“Trust me,” he told her, solemn, as though she could ever do anything but. “We’ll get there.”</p><p><br/>
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>//</p>
</div><br/><p>
Ten minutes later, they were turning onto a narrow, dirt road, surrounded on both sides by a thick blanket of forest. The car lurched through the rivets and craters in the mud, little pebbles pinging the undercarriage, until finally they came to a break in the trees, the ravine in the distance just barely distinguishable in the twin spotlights of their high beams. Luke eased them into a little spot where the brush had been cleared away and stamped over by years and years of tire treads, and turned the car off, plunging them into sudden darkness.</p><p>
“I know where we are,” Nell said, blinking fast, waiting for her eyes to adjust. “I’ve heard the girls talk about it in the locker room. Isn’t this where people come to park and, like, make out?”</p><p>
Luke laughed. “Jesus," he said. "You sound like a grandma. Don’t worry. I don’t have any designs on your virtue. I’ve only been here once, just with Travis and Mike,” which meant he’d come out here to get high. “In the summer, people swim and stuff. There’s a rope swing over there, in the shallow part. C’mon, there’s a bench over here.”
</p><p>
She let him lead the way down an uneven path through the trees, the resounding chorus of bugs nearly drowning out the crunch of leaves under their feet, until they came up on a little overlook protected by a narrow rope fence. “Sit,” Luke told her, and she did, the wood cold through the thin fabric of her dress, leaning into him as he fell into the seat beside her, slinging one arm across the back of the bench.</p><p>
Nell’s breath caught in her throat as she stared out at the night sky. “God,” she whispered in an exhale. In a way, it felt like looking out at the whole universe. There were stars stretched out as far as she could see, so many that it seemed to verge on the impossible. Below them, the water shone in the moonlight, lapping softly at the shore. Nell felt so small, just then. There was something almost comforting in that. She was so small. They both were. Just two of six billion people, sitting there at the edge of the world.</p><p>
Nell tipped her face up into the wind, closing her eyes. She pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs, resting her cheek on the soft fabric of her dress. “You know,” she started into the quiet, “tonight, the reason I lied to everybody, even though —” she cut herself off with a laugh, self-deprecating. “Even though I knew it was crazy. I didn’t mean for any of it to happen. It was just so easy to get caught up in it, you know? Aunt Janet was so happy, and Shirley, I think she was just happy to talk to me about something. To just do something with me, you know?” She glanced over at him, a little desperately. “Do you ever feel like they don’t know what to say to you? Like they’re trying really hard to come up with something to talk about?”</p><p>
“Shirley?” Luke asked. “All the time.”</p><p>
She shook her head. “Not just Shirley. All of them.” He shrugged and she said, “Just for one night, I didn’t want to be hard to talk to. You know? I didn’t want to be me. I just wanted to put my dress on and become someone else.” And it had been so easy, really, to pretend; to pretend to be some wonderful version of herself. A cheerleader, maybe, or class president — someone that people knew, or wanted to know. Someone whose yearbook, at the end of every year, was full of signatures. A girl that people looked at and knew, instantly, just in that look, that her future was bright.</p><p>
The confession hung in the air for a second until Luke took a deep breath and said, “I know. I didn’t want to be me, either.” Then, after a long, quiet moment: “You know I’m never going to judge you, right, Nellie?” Startled, she tilted her head to look over at him, only to find him watching her in return. The look on his face was very serious, visible even in the dark. “You know that, right?” he pressed.</p><p>
“Yeah,” she said, soft. “Yeah, I know. I’m never going to judge you, either.”</p><p>
“I know you won’t,” Luke told her. “You never have. I know I can tell you anything. And you can do the same. You can tell me anything.”</p><p>
“I know,” she said, holding his gaze. “I know I can.”</p><p>
Luke nodded, firm. “Good.” After a beat, he chuckled, shaking his head. “You know Aunt Janet’s going to want to know about the dance.” Nell hummed a little in assent. “What are you going to tell her?” he wanted to know.</p><p>
“That I had a really, really nice time,” she murmured. “Everyone looked really beautiful and they played my favorite song and someone asked me to dance. And then after we danced, he kissed my hand. Like a proper gentleman.”</p><p>
“He sounds like a nerd,” said Luke, huffing out a laugh. “Did he even tell you his name?”</p><p>
Nell smiled. “He did,” she said, “but it was so loud in there, you know? And he leaned in, to whisper it in my ear, and it was very romantic, but I couldn’t hear him.”</p><p>
“Definitely a nerd,” Luke said decisively. “You didn’t recognize him?”</p><p>
“No.” She sighed. “I think he was older. It probably wouldn’t have worked out, anyway, I think. Since he’s about to graduate.”</p><p>
Luke said, “His loss,” and Nell laughed. “Seriously, Nell,” he said. “Anybody would be lucky to be with you, you know? One day, you’re going to make some guy, or some girl, whoever, you’re going to make them the luckiest person in the world.”</p><p>
Nell couldn’t help the small noise she made, tucked into the crook of her elbow. “Maybe,” she choked out. She hoped so, anyway.</p><p>
“This isn’t how life’s always going to be, you know?” Luke continued. “One day, we’re going to graduate and we’re going to leave here, and it’s like, life’s going to be what we want it to be. We’re going to grow up and we’re going to have families and life is going to be so fucking normal. You know? We're going to be so fucking bored."</p><p>
Nell wanted it so badly that she felt like the feeling might choke her. For a second, she could see it, right there in her mind’s eye: the two of them, 20 years from now, surrounded by spouses and kids and even Steven and Shirley and Theo, all of them in their big, beautiful house, and maybe even Daddy would be there, and Aunt Janet, and everything would be just the way she’d dreamt it as a little girl, before they’d ever moved to Hill House. Before things had ever gotten so screwed up. Maybe they’d even have a white picket fence and a dog.</p><p>
“You really believe that?” she whispered, and he said, “I have to believe that. I have to. Or else…” he trailed off, shaking his head. But she knew. She knew.</p><p>
Impulsively, she reached out and seized Luke’s hand, twining their fingers. That point of contact zinged through her, narrowing, until she was abruptly sure that she could feel everything inside him: every thought, every dream, every desire, all of the hidden corners suddenly lit up, shining so bright that she could see him through the dark. Overwhelmed by her love, by the weight of knowing, and being known, she said, “It’s you and me, you know that? You and me.”</p><p>
And he got it, of course he got it, squeezing her hand so tight that it almost hurt, the moonlight glinting off of his teeth as he vowed, “You and me,” so sincere that she could feel it all the way down to her bones.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thanks for reading!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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